


Scintillating Blue

by cuddlesome



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Force Ghost Ben, Force Ghost(s), Force Healing, Gardens & Gardening, Post-The Rise of Skywalker, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Sad and Happy, Slice of Life, Tatooine (Star Wars), The Rise of Skywalker (Movie) Spoilers, True Love, maximum cheese levels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21853441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddlesome/pseuds/cuddlesome
Summary: The touch of a ghost is warmer than she thought it would be. || Post-canon reylo comfort food for the soul.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 20
Kudos: 128





	Scintillating Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been saying, “Ben is probably going to die in IX but it’s okay because he’ll be a Force ghost,” to myself for years. Cried anyway. But, I'll be honest, I'm not upset. I'm happy. They love each other so so much. My little baby reylo self from four years ago could have never predicted that they would come this far. Kissing and smiling adoringly and self-sacrifice. Forever my OTP.

For a while he is only a voice with the occasional feather-soft touch. A reassuring murmur in her ear. A pair of lips on her cheek. Rey wonders at the start if she only longs for what she does not have. Cannot have.

She talks to him before she knows if he can hear or answer back.

She apologizes for stabbing him in the gut. She tells him about how she set fire to his ship on Ahch-To. She thanks him for saving her life. 

She tells him about the smaller, current things too, like how she enjoys Tatooine cuisine better than Jakku’s if only by a thin margin. Cream of Womprat soup is better than expected. Foolish as it is, she puts out a place setting for him at her table with three legs and a pile of scrap as a makeshift fourth. She will eat both portions. She likes to think he appreciates the gesture anyway.

In truth, she starves for the sound of his voice. Unaltered by that gruesome helmet, unhindered by anger or sadness. When he blesses her with the deep, adoring words, she closes her eyes to listen.

Softly: “I’m here, Rey.” And then, softer still: “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She had not gotten the chance to say it when he… when she last spoke to him. “I miss you.”

There is so much more she wants to say, but it feels like talking to empty air.

On occasion, pale blue appears at the corner of her vision. She looks, expecting Luke or Leia, but never Ben, because the disappointment hurts too much. When it is not any of the Skywalkers, her hope is crushed. Just a cruel mirage in the desert heat.

She swallows the lump in her throat and goes back to digging out the Skywalker home. It felt wrong to simply leave it in a state of disarray after burying Luke and Leia’s sabers. 

And some small part of her, perhaps the scavenger part, entertains making it a livable space for herself. Not forever, but long enough to get some alone time; true alone time, not alone time with friends. Rey grins to herself as she thinks of Finn, then sobers. The Resistance, with nothing more to resist, is stifling, especially now with its need for politicians instead of warriors. She hopes he adapts better than her.

Rey stops her work to wipe sweat streaming from her forehead. She could use the Force to move all of the tiny grains of sand out of her way in one fell swoop, but she prefers to use a shovel and old repulsorsled.

Her muscles burn and her back aches. The callouses on her hand from using her staff begin to hurt again. It is a satisfying pain. It is a good distraction from the hollowness in her chest.

Bit by bit, room by room, she unearths the old structure. When she finishes for the day, she retires to the first room she freed aside from the main courtyard. At some point this room functioned as a kitchen based on the various pieces of tableware and broken pottery. For her purposes, the room is both that and a bedroom. Her hammock is a lot more comfortable than the one she had on Jakku, lined with bantha fur for when the temperature drops at night. She could snuggle up in it and sleep for years. 

On the other side of the room the cooking supplies she amassed lay in a pile next to a workbench. In spare moments, Rey works on a rag doll, like the one she had on Jakku made from bits of a rebel pilot’s uniform. This one is made of sturdy, ink-black fabric that she washed clean of sweat and blood and Kef Bir water and Exegol dirt. Even after washing, it smells like Ben. She has difficulty working on the rag doll without tears prickling at her eyes. She cuddles with the rest of the fabric when she sleeps in her soft hammock. She needs something to hold since she cannot have someone. 

Sickness wells in her gut thinking about it. The dinner she intended to make suddenly seems unappealing. 

She changes course and instead goes to her favorite room, the workshop-turned-garden. Rey steps over her spinebarrel and brushes past the candlewick flowers growing on the wall.

Her garden overflows with plants she received as gifts from many worlds. There are some placed in the window in direct sunlight. Others are deep in the shadows in the corners. Not all of them hold up well in Tatooine, but she babies them regardless, working to play to each of their specific needs. 

The sourcane requires a lot of water. The crystal ferns need only a few drops. Her marble-berry bush could use some trimming.

And… her nightbloomer wilted again. Defying her expectations, it did better in space during the trip from Jakku to Tatooine than here. Rey wonders if it is cruel to continue to keep it alive. Nevertheless, she reaches out and transfers a tiny shred of her energy to it, just enough to make it perk up. 

She sinks down onto the center of the floor to meditate. Not about anything in particular. Just to breathe. In an ideal world she could empty her mind of everything. Despite her best efforts, her thoughts go in their usual direction. She swears she can see a pale glow behind her closed eyelids. And… that voice. The one that always haunts her dreams. Whispering her name so she twists and trembles with her arms wrapped around herself and makes her want, want, want.

She loves hearing him, she truly does, but as always her feelings related to him are complicated. Why does the Force tease her like this?

“Rey.”

Her breath catches. His voice rings clearer, crisper, than before. Her heart lurches. She can sense him. As if he occupies the room with her. 

“Would you rather not do this now?” He asks, tone light.

She opens her eyes. Even blurred by her tears and haloed by a soft blue glow, Ben’s towering, broad figure is unmistakable. 

Rey stares in disbelief as he sinks to his knees before her. “You’re here.”

A tear slides down her cheek. He wipes it away with a touch of his thumb. The touch of a ghost is warmer than she thought it would be. 

She reaches out a trembling hand to touch his chest. She has to be sure this is not a trick of the Force. He smiles, coy, and she wants to smack him instead. Rey surges forward and hugs him with all her strength. Despite the translucence of his form, he is as solid as the day she lost him.

Ben strokes her back and whispers reassurances to her as she cries and cries.

It took him a long time to manifest because he used so much of his life force to save her. He had to gather himself before he could appear in the world of the living again. Rey forces herself to calm enough to listen to him as he explains and apologizes for leaving her alone.

“Please forgive me,” he says.

Despite herself, Rey grins. “I’ve forgiven you for worse.”

He smiles back at her. He has a beautiful smile. She had so much difficulty picturing a smile on Kylo Ren’s grim face, but on Ben Solo it is the most natural thing in the galaxy.

“I spent so long chasing you,” he says. “I wasn’t going to let death stop us from finally being together.”

They pick up right where they left off after that. Ben could probably kiss her forever without the need to breathe. Rey wishes she could, but the breaks give her an opportunity to stroke his hair and his face and look deep into his loving eyes.


End file.
